Twitter is all about real-time commerce?

"Twitter wants to be “the world in your pocket,” according to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, but more than anything, it wants to be the engine of mobile and real-time commerce in your pocket. The company sees a future in “removing friction” from e-commerce and allowing companies to target their users directly in real time.

That needs a little "unpacking." When a social network talks about enabling e-commerce, it means use of the Twitter platform as a way of delivering offers to potential customers.

The Twitter CEO said that the company sees a number of opportunities when it comes to enabling — and taking a share of the revenue from — direct e-commerce with users via the service, because “we already see a tremendous amount of commerce taking place on the platform.”

As an example, Costolo talked about how Google tweeted a promotion code that people could use for tickets to its recent IO conference, and about 100 tickets sold in a little over 10 minutes. “That’s $55,000 with one tweet in 13 minutes,” said the Twitter CEO. In another example, the San Diego Chargers tweeted about tickets that were left for a game, and in a little over half an hour they were gone. The upshot of all of that, he said, is that “there’s a commerce opportunity there for us to take advantage of if we want.”

Twitter is all about real-time commerce, says CEO Dick Costolo